The LTV was the worst thing that happened to socialism…

Defending the LTV has gone on for a century and a half, in the process putting Marxists, and too many leftists, permanently on the defensive, as with this article. A skeptical world, and all capitalists, have used the theory’s confusion as an argument against socialism, and a defense of exploitation. What a needless confusion. Marx’s ambitions for Grand Theory backfired…

The simple solution was always to drop the theory and take the argument empirically: workers don’t get paid enough… But the better solution is simply to start over without Marx and his ‘ism’ and as in the Last Revolution move to a new kind of path to postcapitalism…With Marx an historical saga…

Even among Marx-friendly economists, the labor theory of value has fallen out of favor. But its technical validity is less important than the core message: workers are exploited because the value they create is undemocratically taken by capitalists.

Source: Karl Marx Was Right: Workers Are Systematically Exploited Under Capitalism